Pull out the Bach and the crowds show up

One thing seems to be fairly certain in this city: Give a J.S. Bach Brandenburg Concerto cycle and the people will come. The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra used to make a regular habit of it -- and given the line outside the sold-out Walt Disney Concert Hall on Friday night, Bach’s box office magic worked for the Los Angeles Philharmonic too.

This cycle traveled well down the road of accommodation with the period-performance-practice crowd, without capitulating completely. The conductor was Giovanni Antonini, the Milan-born leader of Il Giardino Armonico and a physically flamboyant recorder virtuoso in his own right. The ensembles consisted mostly of modern instruments with a sprinkling of older ones (violas da gamba in No. 6, recorders in Nos. 2 and 4), and several players from outside the Philharmonic pitched in.

In working out the sometimes awkward balances within the sparse instrumentation, Antonini occasionally buried the main lines of the music; concertos Nos. 4 and 6 were disappointing in that regard. Outbreaks of scrappy playing marred the first movement of No. 1 and parts of No. 3. No. 5 often sounded unusually subdued and intimate; it should project out more.

Yet there were plenty of things to savor about these Brandenburgs -- the fast, hearty tempos, passages that achieved the sensation of rhythmic swing that one anticipates but doesn’t always get in Bach performances, the glow of Disney Hall’s acoustics, some truly distinguished solo work.

Concertmaster Martin Chalifour concocted a stylish, flowery solo cadenza for the nub of a second movement in No. 3 -- where Bach indicates only two chords -- and violinist Lyndon Johnston Taylor brightly sailed through the fizzing passagework in No. 4. Lucinda Carver, former conductor of the Los Angeles Mozart Orchestra, provided superb harpsichord continuo work, patiently building the solo cadenza in No. 5 with rubato and increasing intensity. David Washburn, on loan from the L.A. Chamber Orchestra and the L.A. Opera Orchestra, beautifully nailed the high-wire piccolo trumpet part in No. 2, making it dance.

The running order of concertos, by the way, was Nos. 1, 3, 5, intermission, 4, 6 and 2; thus, each half ended with a crowd-pleasing virtuoso display.